Toward Disintegration?

If Nigeria must disintegrate, then in the name of God, let the operation be short and painless. It is better that we disintegrate in peace and not in pieces.

--President Nnamdi Azikiwe, December 1964

Azikiwe was overthrown as President in last January's military coup, but Nigerians last week had ample cause to recall his warning. Another coup had just rocked the nation, and as the details began to emerge, they confirmed the fears that Nigeria, traditionally torn by regional rivalries (see map), had gone through another violent tribal uprising. As a nation, in fact, Nigeria seemed perilously near disintegration.

The latest uprising was the work of Northern Moslems, acting to avenge the Southern-led January coup that had thrown them out of power and killed many of their leaders. It was also designed to forestall another coup, which dissatisfied Southern Ibos had reportedly been plotting against the regime they had put in power. The Southern gripe was simple: Major General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi, an Ibo himself, had proved too soft on the Northerners.

Panic in Lagos. The coup was a bloody affair. In the Western regional capital of Ibadan, where Ironsi had gone to plead for national unity before a meeting of tribal chiefs and emirs, Northern officers kidnaped him from the governor's palace and ordered him at gunpoint into a military Land Rover; his body was reportedly discovered last week outside a nearby village. At the army barracks at Ikeja, near the Lagos international airport, Northerners shot down every Ibo officer they could find, pursued others through Lagos itself, causing widespread panic in the capital; after one shooting incident, dozens of motorists abandoned their cars to flee on foot, and many foreign residents deserted their homes and took shelter in the swank Federal Palace Hotel.

In Enugu, capital of the Ibos' Eastern Region, Military Governor Lieut. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu barricaded himself inside police headquarters, declared his opposition to the new regime and called in Ibo political leaders to line up their support. "After these cruel and bloody atrocities," he charged, "can the people of Nigeria ever live together as members of the same nation?"

With victory in their grasp, the Northerners' first idea was to secede and form their own independent state. After a flurry of long-distance telephone conferences, however, and heavy diplomatic pressure from the West, they were persuaded that the backward, semiarid North would be hard put to go it alone without the natural resources of the South and the skills of the Southerners. Agreeing to one more try at nationhood, they named a 31-year-old lieutenant colonel, Yakubu Gowon, as Nigeria's new supreme commander.

Despite his youth, "Jack" Gowon was not a bad choice. A spartan, British-trained officer who neither smokes nor drinks (his hobby is bird watching), Gowon, although a Northerner, is not a member of the region's dominant Hausa and Fulani tribes. Nor is he a Moslem; his father, a member of the smaller Birom tribe, is a Methodist missionary. But his task is not easy.

"Awo Awo." The fact that Nigeria's future as a nation is now very much in doubt was evident in Gowon's first broadcast to his people. "The basis for confidence in our system of government has not been able to stand the test of time," he said. "The basis for unity is not there. I therefore feel that we should review our national standing and see if we can help stop the country from drifting into utter destruction."

Gowon apparently hopes to turn the government over to civilians "as soon as it can be arranged," and one of his first acts in office was to release from detention one of Nigeria's most respected--and controversial--political leaders, Yoruba Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the deposed premier of the Western Region. "We need you for your wealth of experience," he told Awolowo. His release was greeted by mobs of jubilant Westerners. In Lagos, Yoruba motorists drove through the streets shouting "Awo! Awo!" and a traffic jam seven miles long converged on Awolowo's home town of Ikenne.

Awo was not the only politician freed. In the Eastern Region, Iwo Leader Michael I. Okpara was also released from detention. But it was open to question whether either man would be much help in restoring national unity. Before they were jailed, both had been outspokenly anti-North. And at one time or another, both went on record as favoring the division of Nigeria into its component regional parts.

Whether or not the new government was sincere in its vows to hold the nation together, Nigerians were taking no chances. With threats of secession coming from all regions except the powerless Middle West, the nation's trains, planes and highways were suddenly crowded with Hausas and Fulani fleeing from the South and Ibos and Yorubas deserting the North. Within a matter of weeks, they figured, they might well be caught behind enemy lines.

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